6 Chapter-6: Two days in the mountains

At the entrance of the village, Nabia and Eira and some other villagers, mostly females are gathered here to send off Ashmus for his training.

"Take care of yourself, Ashmus. Don't get lost in the mountains." Nabia said in a serious voice.

"Yes, i will take care of myself, Mother."

"Brother, defeat those beasts and come back safe. Then we will play together." Eira said to his brother.

"Take care, Ashmus."

"Don't get hurt. If you get hurt, we will be sad."

"Come back safe."

The village girls were also worried for his safety. So they all voiced their concerned towards him.

"Why are you guys worried? It's my brother who is going to the mountains. Why are you all fretting like he is your husband?" Eira scolded the girls for being blatant.

The girls also got into argument with her making a lot of noise.

"Let's go, child. We are getting late." Grandpa yoel sighed and started walking signalling him to come.

Ashmus also started walking, waving his hands at his mother and sister.

There were also 5 more men going with them. All of them are 40 to 50 hears old and in the late stage of body transformation stage.

After walking for a while, the party started running towards the distance mountains. The mountain is called 'The Shadowsmokes mountain.' The more you go inside the mountains, the darker and hazier the mountains become. This is perfect hunting ground for beasts. Whoever goes inside the mountain, never returns. So that's why the villagers are only allowed to hunt in the outskirts of the outer regin of the mountain.

The mountains were 20kms to the south of the village. Because all of them have trained their body, it didn't take long for them to arrive at the base of the mountain.

5kms away from the mountains, there was a small post for the villagers to stay and scout the mountains.

If they see a large group of beasts coming down the mountain, then they can call for reinforcement from the village in time and wipe out the group.

When they arrived at the post, they were welcomed by the villagers guarding the post.

After greeting the post guards, the party went towards the mountains to start fighting the beasts.

When they went towards the mountain base they all felt dark, gloomy and hazy atmosphere around the mountain.

Elder yoel instructed them to look out for ferocious beasts with mid dody transformation stage strength so that Asus can fight with it. He also warned them not to go far from each other.

Normally, beasts are stronger than humans in the same stage of cultivation, so if he fights with a late stage beast, then without anyone else intervening, he can't defeat it alone.

So for now, elder wants him to fight alone with a mid level beast to gain some experience.

After searching around for a bit, some one found a mid level beast and reported back.

It was a commonly seen boar type beast with two large tusks and sharp teeth. It had large, black fur with some injuries on its body, clearly indicating that it fought with something before.

Ash nodded towards his grandfather and headed straight for the beast. When the beast saw someone fast approaching it, it got alert. It saw that it was a human and got ready to attack him.

It dashed towards Ashmus with a fast speed and a ferocious expression. If the attack successfully connects, then even a late stage expert will be pushed back with some injuries.

Knowing that fact, Ash dodged to the right to avoiding the strike. The beast saw the human avoid his attack, It turned towards the right and prepared to dash again.

Not far away, Ash noticed it preparing to dash attack again, so he quickly ran towards it and grabbed it's two tusks and pushed back the boar.

Seeing that, it was getting pushed back, the boar got angry and waved his head left and right, trying to free from his opponent's grasp.

Ash was shocked when he saw that the strength the boar was exerting. Even though it was a mid level it can fight with a late stage expert.

When he was about to lose his grasp, he jumped to it's back and wrapped both of his arms around his neck.

Seeing the nore struggling with more force, he striked it's head with his full strength. Without seeing the results, he strikes again and again untill the boar's head was a bloody mess.

After about twenty strikes, the boar stopped struggling and fell down to the side.

Not want to give up, it tries the stand up. But before it could fully stand up, Ash took out a sharp knife from his robe and stabbed through it's eyes straight to his brain.

After getting stabbed, the boar fell down again and lost it's life.

Ash pulled the bloodied knife from it's eyes and wiped the blood and sweat off his face, a bit tired. Even though he killed the beast, he still felt a little sore in his right hand which he used to strike it's head.

By now, elder yoel and others also arrived by the corpse. They were quite surprised to see Ash killing the beast without much difficulty.

"Good, you fought beautifully, knowing that it was your first battle." Elder yoel praised Ash for fighting well for his first battle.

"Yeah, normally one will be a little nervous in his first fight. But you stayed calm before the fight and used your brains to outwit the beast. That was how one should fight. 'If you cannot brute force them, outwit them'."

The others also voiced their agreement.

"Thank you for your praise, seniors."

"Hahahaha. You are nither arrogant nor too humble. Good." The senior villagers were satisfied by his personality.

"Now, do you want to continue or take a rest."

"I want to continue, grandpa."

"Good, then let's go to fight a higher level beast."

They continued hunting till the end of the day. They took small breaks after 2-3 fights. The beasts get too violent at night than the day. So before the sunset, they left for the post to spend the night. People will take turns to keep watch for the night so that no beast comes near the post.

. . . . .

Next morning, elder yoel sent some people to scout out the base again.

Because Ash was too tired the last day, he slept longer than usual.

After finishing their breakfast, they got ready to head towards the mountain.

But before they could go, they saw the scouts running back with a panicked look on their faces.

After arriving at the post camp, they reported their findings with a rushed voice. After hearing their report, everyone in the camp were disturbed. Even elder yoel had serious look on his face.

Everyone in the post quickly rushed towards the mountain base. When they all arrived there, they all got unease and alert look on their faces after seeing the scene here.

There was not a single beast in the vicinity. All they could see was a scene of devastation. There were corpses of various beasts all over the place, some were half eaten or some were just purely killed.

Only a mid rank-1 magical beast can cause this destruction. Rank 1 beast have strength equivalent to a qi absorption realm expert. And a mid rank 1 beast can even fight toe to toe with a late qi absorption realm expert.

The party got scared knowing that a rank 1 beast is roaming around them. They have to kill it here, or if they ran away, the beast will reach the village and kill everyone there. So they have to either kill it or chase it back to the mountains.